We arrived in Chiang Mai yesterday at 7am after taking a slow, cramped, loud, night bus from thailand. we had vowed not to take any more "luxury-sleeper" buses but when we arrived at the train station in bangkok after travelling from Siem Reap all day they said all the sleeper train seats were booked. they showed us to a travel agnct in the train station that then proceeded to rip us off for 950B for a bus that she said was "european sized seats" and that "reclined all the way back" she showed us pictures of the supposed bbus we were to take and it looked prettynice so cautiously accepted. the train, with full sized, nice beds wouldahve cost about 200B less but we went for the bus so we didn'thave to spend the night in bangkok. as usual the bus sucked. i didn't sleep that well, but in the end we made it to chiang mai in one piece so i won't complain anymore about the trip. (however if you want to ask meabout the "luxury buses" and mini buses later on i'll tell you all about it in real cheery terms)

yesterday after arriving we all took a nap and relaxed till about noon then wondered about chiang mai and looked at the old temples in the downtown area

. apparently chiang mai used to be the capital of thailand and has more temples and cultural history than other cities in thailand.

today, we sign up of a thai cooking class. it was a great experience the owner of the business and professional chef showed us how to make 7 traditional thai courses and we got eat everyone. not only was it a great learning experience but thefood was some of the best i've had in thailand. btw, if i haven't written about the food hear or metioned it any of my ultra brief, poorly written, entries (lol); it is AMAZING. every thai dist i've ordered here has been excellent. granted i've tried ordering some western/india/other foreign dishes here in thailand and they haven't been that great, but the thai food has been wonderful. (and a mouth watering green, red, penang, or massaman curry only costs less than $3US.

tomorrow i think we are planning on going to a tiger refuge. where you can get in the cages and play with the tigers....at least thatis what the advertisement says. : )